


midnight kiss

by duma_s



Category: Inazuma Eleven, Inazuma Eleven: Ares no Tenbin, Inazuma Eleven: Orion no Kokuin
Genre: Everyone is there, M/M, New Year's Eve, Pining, basically this is a rom-com, no beta we die like banda, partying at kidou's mansion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28245255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duma_s/pseuds/duma_s
Summary: nishikage struggles because he is nosaka’s best friend—and not nosaka’sboyfriend.
Relationships: Nishikage Seiya/Nosaka Yuuma
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	midnight kiss

**Author's Note:**

> so i used to write christmas fics but this time i wanted to try a new year’s eve fic. unfortunately, this is not beta read and my english sucks. but writing this fic was fun. i hope you can have fun reading it, too.

Nosaka hands him a dish full of French fries, olives and tempura.

Sometimes, Nishikage thinks he does it specifically to make him feel sick, because of course Nosaka knows how much he is strict with his diet.

“For you,” Nosaka says, smiling softly at him.

Nishikage is surprised. Well, maybe this is a scene that has been repeated a thousand times over the last few years—Nosaka offers him food and Nishikage gets embarrassed—yet he still can’t get used to the pink-haired boy being so sweet with him.

He has always known that Nosaka is different from other people. Even when everyone believed Nosaka was bad, Nishikage knew that kind, tender side of him. Perhaps because initially Nosaka was true to himself only when he was with Nishikage, even if not entirely.

Nosaka is like that. He is an amazing, selfless person. Nishikage cannot help but be in love with him. However, at the same time, he stays on his lane. He has to be Nosaka’s best friend and nothing else. After all, Nosaka is too much for him and Nishikage is too grateful to ruin their friendship. If it weren’t for that boy, he would probably still be living a street life, not looking for an alternative to change his future.

“Thanks, Nosaka-san,” he replies politely, reluctantly accepting that dish full of fried food. Fried food is bad for his diet.

“It’s only two hours to midnight,” Nosaka points out as he chews a piece of watermelon.

Nishikage would like to tell him that it’s not watermelon season, that he should eat healthier and try seasonal fruit, but Nosaka’s passion for watermelon is so childish that it makes him smile.

“Yeah.”

Nishikage looks around.

For that New Year’s Eve, they decided to reunite the ex-Inazuma Japan team at Kidou’s mansion to have fun all together.

Nishikage is pleased to see Saginuma again, because not everyone has continued to play soccer since they went to high school. Saginuma gave up—he explained to Nishikage between a glass of beer and the other that maybe soccer doesn’t sit right with him—and he became sad, because after all it is thanks to that sport that they met.

Fudou is in a corner laughing at Kazemaru, who has red cheeks and is hiding behind Genda’s shoulder. But Genda laughs too and Sakuma is looking at his best friend with irritation.

Haizaki is smiling as he only smiles at Asuto, who is surely telling him about his life in Inakuni. Mizukamiya holds an arm around Haizaki’s shoulders and listens intently to the black-haired boy, who seems enthusiastic about what he is saying.

Hiroto is sighing. Next to him, Tatsuya and Midorikawa exchange quick kisses—Nishikage envies them, he really envies them—because apparently they have been dating unofficially together for three years, officially for a few months. Saginuma told him they started dating soon after Football Frontier International.

The guys from Inakuni are laughing together, sitting around a table. Obviously, they are the life of the party. Norika is chatting with Nae, who came to the party with the Fubuki brothers. Those two are confabulating something with Someoka, who apparently wanted to come to say hello to his old friends from Raimon. Kozoumaru is always silent, yet he smiles at all the jokes his friends say, especially those of Golem and Goujin.

Endou and Gouenji are alone. And no, no one expects Gouenji and Endou to be alone, on the sidelines, at a party. The two of them were always the stars of the field. They smile to each other in a particular way, Gouenji sometimes blushes. Endou is the usual Endou. Like Asuto, he is telling something to Gouenji in an enthusiastic way.

Ichihoshi moves from one side of the room to the other. He arrived from Russia this morning. He was sorry to leave Froy alone in Kazan but, apparently, the Girikanan brothers are busy with Orion, which has now become a truly charitable organization.

Ichihoshi has spent some moments with him and Nosaka, too. For Ichihoshi, Nosaka is a very important friend. They are keeping in touch after all these years, even when they are far away. Nishikage can’t blame him and he’s no longer jealous.

Part of him has given up. Yes, it’s true, he loves Nosaka. He really loves him, but it’s been five years since they first met, they have both changed and Nishikage realized he can only be Nosaka’s best friend. He doesn’t even feel in pain because of this anymore.

“What are your New Year’s good resolutions?” He asks Nosaka.

Nosaka shrugs. “You know, I was thinking about asking Anna to go out with me. For a date.”

Nishikage feels one’s legs give way.

True, he accepted that he can only be Nosaka’s best friend, but he had never taken into account that the boy might like another person.

“Oh,” Nishikage comments in a whisper. “Sorry, I need a glass of water.”

Nishikage does not break down. Because he is like that, if he dies inside he hates to show it. Especially to Nosaka.

However, Nosaka does not call for him to come back and lets him go.

Maybe Nishikage should tell him something. Maybe he shouldn’t keep it all to himself, he should declare his feelings to Nosaka and make him decide what to do with them. If he would still like to be his friend or just enjoy his time with Anna. Or maybe...

No, Nishikage doesn’t want to think about it. In his head, there is no chance Nosaka can reciprocate his feelings.

It is true, Nosaka always fusses over him. Every morning he sends him the good morning message and every night he sends him the good night message, he likes to iron his shirts and always makes sure Nishikage has something to eat. When Nosaka has to do something important—at least since he had cancer—he always asks Nishikage to be with him, like when he decided to meet his parents again during a few days off from school. Nosaka always gives him gifts, even when it’s not Christmas, even when it’s not his birthday. Sometimes he just knocks on the door of Nishikage’s room with a small gift box in his hands and smiles at him. He smiles closing his gray eyes and lifting the corners of his mouth in that sweet way.

But that’s what best friends do, right? After all, they are both alone and perhaps Nosaka regards him as an older brother. Nishikage wishes he could say the same thing.

“Hey, man, are you all right?”

Fudou’s voice wakes him from his thoughts. He would recognize it from miles away, that weird boy’s deep voice, even if he hasn’t seen him for a couple of years.

Nishikage nods, eating a French fry out of desperation. If he fails his diet only on New Year’s Eve, can it be that bad?

“Anyway, I thought you and Nosaka were together. But Ichihoshi said you’re just friends.”

Nishikaga coughs, caught off-guard. “What?”

“Yeah, actually I thought you were dating during Football Frontier International, already. Apparently, I was wrong.”

“Why do you care?” Nishikage asks him, really confused.

“Because it seems as you do,” Fudou replies, obviously. “You walked away from him as if he were going to set you on fire.”

Nishikage looks down. Actually, in a few words, Fudou described the way he feels whenever he is near Nosaka.

Anyway, he shrugs. “It’s nothing.”

Fudou smiles at him mischievously and walks away.

Nishikage sits in an empty armchair, away from everyone.

The fried food is really tasty. The only thing he can get pleasure from, actually.

“Nishikage!” Endou calls him after a few minutes.

Nishikage sighs. Apparently, he can’t be alone mulling over his horrible life without being interrupted. “Endou,” he greets his ex-captain, trying to smile at him. “Do you need something?”

Endou looks at him with frowning eyebrows. “No, I just wanted to tell you that your new hissatsu is great! I follow you a lot even now that we are in high school, and I hope that someday they will call us both for the U21 national team.”

Nishikage smiles. “In any case, you would always play and I would be on the bench.”

Endou shrugs. “People don’t know, but you’re useful when on the bench too. I still can’t thank you enough for the lessons you gave me.”

Nishikage smiles to himself, pleased with the compliment Endou has given him.

“Listen, how’s it going with Nosaka?”

Nishikage almost opens his eyes wide. Why does everyone seem interested in his relationship with Nosaka tonight?

“How’s that supposed to go?”

“I don’t know, I saw you suddenly walk away from him, I hope nothing serious happened.”

Nishikage sighs. Apparently, it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“No, I just–”

“Nishikage,” Endou cuts him off. “Did Nosaka reveal his feelings to you, but you don’t reciprocate?”

If Nishikage had any sense of humour, he would burst out laughing. “Endou-san... Are you serious?”

Endou tilts his head and looks at him curiously. “Nishikage, I think you love Nosaka very much. In fact, I am a hundred percent sure that you feel something very deep for him. Don’t make him suffer, he needs you.”

“I–”

“Sorry, Kidou is calling for me. Think about it, Nishikage!”

Endou smiles and then turns his back to him, leaving him completely alone, again.

Indeed, there are those who think that Nosaka is in love with him, and that he does not reciprocate. There is some comedy in all of this.

“Sorry, maybe Endou was too intrusive,” Gouenji sits down next to him on the arm of the chair.

Nishikage coughs. He doesn’t understand why they all want to spend time with him tonight.

“Don’t worry,” he just replies. After all, that was Endou.

He has never had a true friendship with Gouenji, yet now that the boy is sitting next to him, he feels much more relaxed.

“I think I fell in love with him,” Gouenji says. “I don’t know, I only realized it now and–”

The soccer striker stops. Perhaps, like Nishikage, he is wondering why he is talking to him about it.

“I understand how you feel,” the blond boy finishes, smiling firmly at him.

Nishikage doesn’t understand how Gouenji can be so confident and so unsure of himself at the same time.

“So you understand that...” He tries to say. He wants to continue the conversation, but he doesn’t know if he is capable of it. After all, he likes to be silent and listen. Even with Nosaka, it’s always been like this.

Gouenji shrugs. “Well, I initially thought you two were together,” he says. “Then I realized you were just friends and I saw a part of me in the way you behaved. Even though I didn’t understand anything about feelings at the time.”

“Yeah,” Nishikage says.

“What happened?”

Gouenji seems genuinely interested. At that point, Nishikage doesn’t even ask him what he is talking about; apparently, the blond boy saw the whole scene, too.

“I am Nosaka-san’s best friend and I have to accept that he might like another person,” Nishikaga simply states. He expresses his sense of duty even when he is suffering from a broken heart.

Gouenji smiles sweetly at him. He has kind of a paternal smile, Gouenji. Nishikage had already noticed this when they were little more than children. As if he had to grow adult too soon.

“Does Nosaka know how you feel?” Gouenji asks.

Nishikage sighs. “I’ve never told him about it. But I think it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

The blond boy chuckles as he brushes a lock of hair behind his ear. For once, his hair falls straight over his shoulders, with no gel to keep it up, and it is super long. Nishikage thinks if he should change his hairstyle, too.

“In my opinion it is not that obvious. Look at Endou, he is so naive when it comes to relationships that he will never understand by himself what I feel for him. Sure, Nosaka is not Endou, but maybe he isn’t telling you something, either.”

“Gouenji!” Endou calls for the blond boy, waving his hand. “Come and see what Kidou and I did!”

Nishikage doesn’t need to pay too much attention to it to understand that this is some soccer pattern.

“Don’t take anything for granted, Nishikage,” Gouenji tells him one last time, only to leave him alone again.

According to Nishikage, Gouenji is completely off track. Sure, the soccer striker has always been a very intelligent and empathetic person, but maybe this time around he has seen things that are not.

He has no hope, this is the truth. But he decides to stop complaining about it. He probably just needs some time to process it and eventually everything will go back to normal. Nosaka doesn’t need to worry about his best friend when he can finally be happy with someone else.

At some point, everything becomes silent. Cold air enters—someone opened the front door. The girls are there. Nishikage hasn’t seen them in a lifetime, sometimes he only crossed paths with Anna because she stayed in touch with Nosaka. They are all elegantly dressed and look amused; Kidou had mentioned that his sister and her friends would arrive after dinner, because they needed some time between girls only.

Haruna immediately hugs her brother. Natsumi smiles at everyone with the elegance of a princess, while holding Aki arm in arm. Tsukushi has much longer hair, tied with two ponytails. She doesn’t look like she has changed at all. She runs towards Norika and holds her in a suffocating hug. And then, there is Anna. Beautiful as always, with her big blue eyes and her perfect outfits.

Nishikage never thought he is ugly, quite the contrary. He works hard on his look, he monitors his diet and he spends at least an hour a day in the gym, even when he has soccer training. He likes to take care of his hairstyle and his outfits and he even puts eyeliner around his eyes.

But Anna is really something else. She looks like a fairy, a beautiful fairy straight out of a fantasy book. He has no doubt about why Nosaka is attracted to her.

Just then, the pink-haired boy approaches Anna.

Nishikage sighs.

Nosaka smiles faintly, holds out an arm to the girl, who smiles in turn. It doesn’t seem as if there is much passion between them, yet they don’t take their eyes off each other. And then they start talking, just the two of them, staying away from everyone, as if they have so much to tell one another.

Nosaka doesn’t seem to look for him even by mistake. Nishikage pretends that this doesn’t hurt him, but it does. It does a lot.

He tries hard not to look at them. Sometimes he fails, sometimes he succeeds. At some point, he approaches the Eisei squad—as everyone calls them—because Saginuma’s pragmatism is what he needs now. He doesn’t want to look like a boring person. It’s New Year’s Eve, for fuck’s sake.

But for the umpteenth time, his gaze lays on Nosaka. It’s as if his eyes had a life of their own. Nosaka and Anna are laughing and the boy seems so happy. It’s not difficult to make Nosaka happy, he knows it. However, he asks himself if he is capable of making him happy. Maybe not. Because he is a very boring, silent, introvert person, while Anna is so passionate about everything.

It hurts to sort out all these things. Especially when everybody is dancing and chatting and having fun and he doesn’t want to ruin anyone’s party.

It is almost midnight.

“You know, Nishikage,” Saginuma starts, waking him from his thoughts. “All of this reminds me when Norika came as a reinforcement member of the team, back at the Football Frontier International times.”

“How come?” Nishikage asks. He doesn’t get what his ex-teammate is trying to say.

“I was so jealous that everybody had a place in the team while I was a no one. And nobody seemed to notice me! You were like me at the beginning, but then Nosaka came back and you didn’t need someone to notice you, because you had him.”

Nishikage feels his cheeks redden, but he doesn’t deny anything. Saginuma’s analysis is pretty accurate, actually.

“As I was saying, when Norika arrived I was a no one and a girl, younger than me, succeeded to play during her first match. I believed I was going crazy. But I realized…” Saginuma sighs, as if he was struggling while remembering about that period. “I realized that I had to do something. I couldn’t stand there frozen, passive, without doing anything. That was my life and I had the right to choose for myself.”

“So you went to talk to the Mister,” Nishikage remembers, smiling softly.

Saginuma was his exact opposite, but Nishikage likes him a lot. Maybe he needs a different person to shake him and convince him in doing something. Because he’s not brave enough.

“Exactly,” Saginuma replies, nodding. “This is your life and you can’t let Nosaka decide everything for you. It’s up to you to decide if you want to be by his side while he’s with another person and it’s up to you to decide if you don’t. But you have to clear the air between you and him.”

Someone begins to do the countdown. There are only twenty seconds left before midnight.

Nosaka stands near Ichihoshi. Anna is with the other girls, who have started the countdown. So, they’re not together anymore.

Nishikage inhales.

He has to decide what he wants to do in less than… fifteen seconds.

 _Let’s get this over with_ , he thinks, while he approaches Nosaka.

Ten seconds left.

“Nishikage,” Nosaka murmurs, when they are close enough.

“Nosaka-san,” Nishikage replies and he can’t help but think the boy he is in love with is so beautiful, with his big grey eyes and his delicate facial features.

Five seconds.

Nishikage finds the courage, somewhere in his heart. He cups Nosaka’s cheekbone with his hand and gets closer and closer.

Two seconds.

He feels Nosaka’s breath on his face and Nishikage can swear he is dying inside, his heart is beating too fast to function.

It's midnight.

Everybody is screaming and jumping around in the great hall of Kidou’s mansion.

But Nishikage can’t hear anything. He looks for the last time at Nosaka’s grey eyes, then he closes his eyes and kisses him.

Their lips meet and Nishikage thinks he’s going to faint. Nosaka’s lips taste of watermelon sugar and, above all, Nosaka is reciprocating the kiss.

Nishikage can’t believe it. He deepens the kiss because he doesn’t know if there will be another one, and he wants to enjoy every single second Nosaka is giving him.

Nishikage finds Nosaka’s tongue ready for his and he thinks that tomorrow there will be a funeral of a person died of too much happiness. _His_ funeral.

Then Nosaka interrupts the kiss.

Nishikage doesn’t want it to end, but he realizes that it has to happen, eventually.

“Nosaka-san, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t take his hand off the cheek of the pink-haired boy, who is smiling.

Obviously, he is smiling. Nishikage could say anything, but Nosaka is too good to get angry with anyone.

Yet he returned the kiss, perhaps...

“Nishikage, what are you sorry for?” Nosaka asks him. “In fact, I never thought you’d ever do that. But apparently my strategy has helped.”

Nishikage is too shocked to know what to say.

“I am the emperor of tactics, am I not?” Nosaka continues. “Maybe I should have tried long ago to make you jealous. We wouldn’t have wasted all these years.”

Nishikage doesn’t even try to keep up with Nosaka’s twisted reasoning.

He just kisses him again. And it seems like a great way to start the new year.


End file.
